Love Gone Wrong and Thereafter
by RoseQuartz1
Summary: When Blossom resurrects Bunny, she gets more than she bargained for. Slight warning: Darkish AU.


Blossom still could remember Bunny's screams the second time she died.

It wasn't like the first time, no; nothing like the explosion of genetics spliced by five-year-olds hoping to have a get-out-of-jail-free card. Scorched rubble and shrapnel and that little piece of purple cloth was all Bunny left behind when life became too much for her sensitive chromosomes.

The descent of understanding and guilt were a slow crash on the little girls. They hadn't known, not even Blossom could have predicted their littlest sister's demise as the effect of their selfishness.

They cried as much as they little bodies could stand, and made sensitive amends with the Professor. He hadn't even known about Bunny, yet he still could understand the impact of unintentional manslaughter on innocent little girls infected with basic human nature. He deplored human beings who let their pride get in the way of others' lives. In turn, the Professor set his daughters straight, and convinced them that it wasn't truly their fault, as good parents are expected to do in order to save their child's innocence.

But as usual, Blossom was not one to forget her mistakes, even the ones she made as a child. She pushed the guilt away to save herself from depression, and picked up Bunny's last piece of purple cloth and hid it away. As she got older, she studied the Professor's notes on genetics, especially on the process of creating the PowerPuff Girls. She learned more than any university would tell her.

Blossom wanted to make it up to Bunny, to give her a new lease on life. They treated her worse than anyone should be treated, yet Bunny had continued on, loving, laughing, living, until she could do so no more, simply because she had the mental capacity of an infant. Bunny loved her sisters more than anything, and they couldn't even treat her right. And beside the guilt, Blossoms' pride was wounded. She was the smartest girl in school, but felt disgusted that she couldn't even create life correctly _and_ treat it with respect as life should be, as the Professor treated her and Bubbles and Buttercup.

Using her intelligence, she could recreate Bunny, in a way that she was sure Bunny would be normal. It wouldn't even matter that the new Bunny wouldn't have any past memories. The strip of purple cloth had the genetic information, but it couldn't detain memory banks. In fact, she was hopeful that Bunny would have no idea who they were, so she wouldn't have to deal with guilt of the past.

At sixteen, when she finally attempted the experiment on Bunny's cloth and sugar, spice, and everything nice, and Chemical X, what she hadn't counted on was Bunny returning worse than ever. Bunny was a rapid monster. Violence, violence, the hospital. The correct ingredients should have dispelled her earlier mental problems, since they were only because of the disgustingly incorrect ingredients.

Perhaps her mistake was in not telling the Professor about her activities. Perhaps it was that she had wanted to impress her father with what she could do. Perhaps it had not been about Bunny at all, but her own pride. Perhaps she had never ever learned anything at all from Bunny's first death.

The funny thing is that she had told Bubbles and Buttercup. As expected, they tried to talk her out of it. But she wouldn't be persuaded. She understood the principles by then, and the materials were ready. All Blossom had wanted was their trust, and unassuming love for the new Bunny, but she should have known they would be reluctant. Still, they were the only reason she hadn't died when the new Bunny burst into life in the basement under the Professor's laboratory. And of course, they had told the Professor.

He hadn't been quite understanding, not even for the excuse that it was in the pursuit of science. In fact, as Blossom was being carried out on a stretcher after her sisters and animal control had subdued Bunny, she thought she could see him crying on the couch through her less puffed-up eye.

While at Townsville Hospital, she thought long and hard about her motives, after her numerous surgeries, of course. When she had returned home after a few months of healing, she found that her family was waiting for her, including the seething Bunny, locked in a titanium cage in the complete darkness of the basement. They had already planned to kill Bunny, of course. Even if they hadn't decided as such, the mayor ordered them. When a PowerPuff Girl is ravaged by her own monstrous creation, the mayor is always involved, despite his eccentricities. The only questionable subject in the mayor's conditions for Bunny's death was that the Utonium family had some questionable options for how to do it.

Once Bubbles opened the door, the unreadable expression on the Professor's face had caused a seed of fear grew in Blossom's heart as she walked in on crutches. They were all sitting in the living room waiting for her. Clearly, they had known she was being released that day, but none of them had come to pick her up. Robin had given her a ride on her work break. They were still friends, sure, but neither had anything to say the entire trip.

Buttercup looked angry, and Bubbles was quietly crying. Well, Buttercup always looked angry, and Bubbles was always tearing up about the strangest things. Blossom was forever telling them to change their attitudes, but perhaps her own cold, calculating gaze wasn't much for example. Now, she knew they had a perfectly acceptable answer in the basement. It was the Professor's reaction to the situation that threw her off. Of course, she knew that he would have to be at least angry with her, but she was still unprepared. He was always calm and caring, a barrel of laughs, especially pleasant for a nerdy scientist.

To see him actually angry was unfathomable. He hadn't even seemed angry about Bunny's first death, but obviously that was just for show. To comfort three terrified little girls. She was sure she was the only terrified little girl the moment she walked into the house. But surely no comfort was coming.

Bubbles returned to the couch where Buttercup was sitting. The Professor sat on the recliner. Blossom kept her eyes downcast, standing awkwardly on the edge of the living room. Bunny's cage rattled, and a rasping screech rumbled through the floors. Bubbles shook and sobbed loudly. Buttercup threw her hands over her ears and moaned, "You have _no_ idea how horrible that noise has been this whole time, Blossom."

The Professor stood up and stared coolly at Blossom, before starting towards the door behind which were the stairs that led to the basement. He threw the door open, and Bunny's unintelligible yells escalated into shrieks. Blossom couldn't help but feel like she'd been slapped.

She'd enjoyed her stay at the hospital. The nurses were kind, and none had been briefed on the cause of her injuries. The food hadn't been too bad. The rooms were clean. The gardens were exquisite. Based on the amount of damage the city took on a monthly basis, there were bound to be some injuries to the populous. The hospital had to be effective to keep the city laborers healed quickly and effectively so the economy wouldn't be shut down.

In all her years of experience and intelligence, not once did the effect of her destructive superhero duties ever cross Blossom's mind. Not once. The weight of her decisions finally came crashing down, and with it, something that could be called enlightenment.

The Professor gestured to her to follow him down the steps, and she absently followed, leaving one crutch behind so she could grip the banister. Seeing her father's hand gripping the butt of a gun barely phased her. What had to be done, had to be done, no matter the fear cracking Blossom's heart.

The dark seemed endless, as did Bunny's rabid yells. The shaking cage squeaked in Blossom's ears so pressingly that she eventually wondered what other sounds were like. She carefully brought one crutch down a step, then a foot, and repeated it. This process was the only thing keeping her from believing she was trapped in the vacuum of space. A clink of the Professor's shoes landing on the metallic floor of the basement signaled she was almost at the end. A bright light clicked on from a torch the Professor held, and Blossom had to shield her eyes from the blinding little sun with her free hand.

The Professor leveled her with a look as she touched bottom and held up the gun.

"This is what we have decided to use on your creation." Blossom stared at it, giving quick little glances at the Professor's face every now and then. He said nothing for several minutes, as did she. Then he sighed.

"We have also decided that you will be the one to use it."

Blossom's head shot up, and her pink eyes widened in horror. " _What?"_ she squeaked. He held it out further and cocked his head to the side.

"You need to clean up your mess, Blossom." There was no mercy in his tone. Her head dropped and shook no, no, _no._ But there was no escape. Her injuries blocked her flying ability, and there was no way she could outrun a grown man on the stairs with a crutch.

But no, that was all a dream. If only it was _all_ a dream. Hot tears dripped down her face as she took the gun from her father's hand. She hobbled towards the cage, partially lit by the torch. Her eyes took in the new Bunny's figure. She hadn't gotten a good look at her before she attacked Blossom furiously. Blossom felt red splotches expanding on her face as her tears rained down harder. Bunny's twisted face roared at her, bending the titanium bars, yet they still held.

Maybe Bunny really was just an animal. A mindless animal, Blossom thought. No humanity to begin with. Blossom was a failure. Bunny was a failure. Both were just that all the way from the beginning.

But maybe Bunny was the most human she'd ever been. Maybe she did have those accursed memories. Maybe she truly hated Blossom for bringing her back. Maybe she understood how horrible the PowerPuff Girls actually had treated her all those years ago. And then, she was released was pain she didn't even understand, and then her selfish older sister brought her back. Of course, she'd hate Blossom.

After all, why would anyone want to leave heaven? Bunny deserved peaceful eternity more than anyone, that Blossom knew. She almost thought she could see fear in Bunny's animal eyes as she raised her arm and pulled the trigger. A bang erupted from the gun, and the bullet hit Bunny in the shoulder. She screamed so loudly and fell to the floor.

Blossom shook and collapsed on the floor, her crutch clattering to her side. Her head shot towards where the Professor was standing in the light of the torch. Panic was in her eyes. "Can I go now?!" she yelled at him over Bunny's blood-curdling screams. He shook his head.

"Not until she's completely dead."

Blossom wilted on the floor and sobbed and Bunny's blood pooled on the floor of the cage and dripped over the side. She sat up and shakily held the gun, clicking the trigger once again. The bullet hit Bunny's stomach this time, pushing her back against the floor. Even more blood flowed from the second wound. Bunny screamed even louder, filling the entire length of the room. Surely Bubbles' and Buttercup's ears would be ringing.

Blossom could only weep and wretch her hospital breakfast onto the dusty floor where her genetics equipment used to be. Bunny's blood gushed like a waterfall over the edge of cage and mixed with Blossom's vomit. But still Bunny wasn't finished. The screams were corroding Blossom's mental stability in those final moments when she shot the bullet that would finally leave Bunny's bloody, monstrous body quivering with slowing breaths.

Leading to the present a few weeks later, after the Professor dragged Blossom out of the basement, she won't leave her room, not even for school, because Bunny's dying screams still ring in her ears, and they get louder the closer Blossom is to the basement.

She doesn't want to be here. She doesn't want to be her.

* * *

 **Hello! Yes, Lucy-chan, I wrote a PPG one-shot before I finished my OD fics. It's sad. X World building is so hard.**

 **So I tried to make this dark. Every time I think about Bunny's situation with her sisters I always come up with something dark. Maybe it's an angsty teenager thing, haha. I feel like I crammed in too much emotion with too little detail. I need advice.**

 **Hit me down below with your critique!**


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